World Climate Map Updated

摘要

Although it is now over 100 years old, the Koppen-Geiger system of climate classification is still widely used by teachers and researchers. Developed in the 1800s, it assigns the climate at any particular location to one of five general categories (tropical, arid, temperate, cold, or polar) and adds subdivisions based on annual temperature and precipitation. When this system was first created, the global distribution of weather stations was inconsistent, and mapping techniques were relatively crude.rnNow, Murray C. Peel, a geographer at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has updated the Koppen-Geiger system and produced a new global climate map based on data from more than 4,200 weather stations that have been collecting precipitation and temperature data for at least 30 years. According to the new map, the most common climate type by land area is Hot desert (14.2% of total land area), followed by Tropical savannah (11.5% of total land area).